Christmas in July

by Alan Michael Parker

  I had worked so hard, and now this. I would need to start my work again, try less, find a longer pose, a pose for life. What had I been waiting for? I had been so wrong.

  “Of course he talked to me,” Christmas said, doing a little shifting sideways, adjusting her skinny body in the wide beekeeping suit. “He’s Blue the Dog. He told me to come take care of you.”

  “Thank you,” I said to the girl. “Thank you,” I turned to Blue the Dog.

  “Oh, Snow Joe,” Christmas said. “You’re nuts.”

  We waited there together, a singleness new to me.

  Maybe waiting is the question and the answer, I thought.

  But no, wrong again, that was wrong too.

  Time is the question and the answer.

  GLITTER

  At approximately 2:30 p.m. on July 27, a brutally hot Tuesday afternoon, I stepped out of the Saxon Hills Post Office into the worst sunlight ever for a hangover, reached for my sunglasses, stumbled, tripped, and stopped myself from falling. I kind of caught my hand on the railing. I stood there a moment, rubbing my wrist, and for some freaky-do reason looked around slowly. Something wasn’t right. I put on my sunglasses—better. I thought about the delicioso possibilities of an iced Venti skim latte and a chocolate chip yogurt muffin. I had not yet eaten. A muffin would be perfect. I turned to my left, toward Starbucks, standing in an uninteresting place on a boring afternoon, and although I was as sane as I would ever be, I saw a ghost. I was only twenty-six years old, and everything I had ever known was changed. A ghost made my life different forever.

  How did I know it was a ghost? No doubt, Dudley. A girl who sees a ghost that’s different from the rest of the world knows: the ghost is a ghost. That’s how.

  For sure, that same girl would also have a variety of responses to this bonkers situation. To begin, there are no ghosts—so what was I supposed to think? I was of sound mind, henceforth and yadda, yadda, yadda. I was scared. This was new.

  Plus the ghost was rude, a rude ghost. Are all ghosts rude? I mean, if I were a ghost, I would be rude, too—and that thought made me realize another important point. The ghost knew me personally.

  But really, I hate rude people, so I hate rude ghosts: there’s no reason to be rude. I called out, “Hey, you!” but the ghost walked or floated away, whatever it was doing to move, and never turned around. Then the ghost disappeared around the corner by the First Commerce Bank.

  While the ghost had facial features, I hadn’t recognized the ghost. My Nana had died over a year ago, but the ghost hadn’t looked like Nana. Or maybe my dead Nana had become a different person, now that she was a ghost, even though I had no clue why that would happen. What if ghosts became their original people, who they were meant to be when they were alive—and did that mean Nana was the wrong person when she was alive? That would account for Nana’s being so bitchy all the time, and especially to my mom, but it also didn’t make any sense. I mean, who’s to say a person’s the wrong person? The whole thing seemed way too complicated, like a philosophy question some guy asks you in line at the movies when you only want to see the movie. He up and says something that’s a puzzle about life—I mean, come on, everyone standing there knows why the guy’s asking you.

  Seeing a ghost’s a biggie. Just seeing a ghost once was enough to make me decide to stop going to church, right there, for good, no more of that. I had never liked church. I only went to church because of Mom and her friends, and my family’s position in town, but I had never believed in Jesus, although he did have an A-1 PR and marketing team. No more church for this ghost girl.

  Of course I wanted the ghost to be mine. The ghost had something personal to tell me, just for me. A girl knows. The ghost had a message that was too hard to communicate directly—the ghost hadn’t stopped to chat—and the message for sure was for me, Evie Starkweather Louis, daughter of Bertrand Ellison Louis and Nancy Robinson Starkweather Louis of Saxon Hills, Maryland, living in a town with streets named after my grandparents on my mother’s side. I am not unrecognizable: the ghost could so easily know what I look like, and who I am. I am one-sixteenth Navajo, “a bubbly socialite”—according to the local paper—a willing volunteer in various charities, and trying to make a difference because I can. Just a month ago, I was named to the Board of the Boys and Girls Club. I’m single, attractive, with good bone structure, my cheekbones memorable. Anyone who sees me remembers. I work as an event planner extraordinaire, in public relations, a job I like some days. More secretly, because a girl needs secrets, I am the online administrator of an anonymous group of friends who communicate in a chat room and trade pictures and stuff, people with whom I share a fetish. Because I am not only Evie Starkweather Louis of Saxon Hills, Maryland, but also Evie Glitter, glitterevie@gmail.com.

  The ghost was gone and there I was, and it occurred to me for a moment that maybe the ghost was me—that I was dead. But no, that didn’t make any sense either, since I still had a hangover.

  Ghost and Evie, relationship status: It’s Complicated.

  Should I change my life? Give me a reason to change my life. I mean, really, what would I change? I like men, and I am past kissing girls because it’s cool. Quitting church doesn’t count—it wouldn’t change my life, just get Mom all huffy. My older brother had quit years ago, and my family were showpony Presbyterians. They didn’t care anymore, not really, so I only needed an excuse to quit.

  I couldn’t think of anything to change that would matter enough to a ghost. So, as a result, pretty much right there, like ten seconds later, I made a promise: no matter how terrifying or dangerous, I was going to see the ghost again. I would find the ghost, speak to the ghost, and learn why I, who don’t believe in ghosts, had seen a ghost. Why me, why here, why now, and why especially just four days before the first annual GlitterFest in Saxon Hills, Maryland, organized by me, Evie Glitter, which I had planned to be my coming out as Evie Glitter. Was the ghost here to ruin everything? If the ghost and the ghost people were here to ruin everything, why didn’t they just send my mother?

  Were there ghost people too? Could be a whole bunch of them, why not. One ghost, two ghosts, whatever. But a girl’s first ghost is her most important, even I knew that.

  I decided. On that hot July day—uncomfortable in the humidity despite my woven cotton summer hat and new Ray-Bans, in my pinstriped yellow linen suit from Tremonte, the one with the little bow on the back of the boat collar, wearing cute black flats—I made up my mind to haunt this ghost until I learned its secrets. The ghost probably knew all about me already, so it was only fair.

  I imagine it’s unusual at twenty-six to have an experience you don’t believe is possible, and as a result to get a new secret to keep—different from my fetish life in Glitter. I had just seen a real live ghost, not a fake ghost, and that was important too, even more reason to keep the ghost secret. There’s so much fake stuff. Of course there had to be fake ghosts in the world too, because there are knockoffs of everything, and so many people are fakes. But my ghost wasn’t one of those.

  The idea of a real ghost, one I had to find, my own ghost—well, I have to confess I was a little jazzed. Maybe the ghost’s job was to make me interested. I mean, I was interested, and Glitter was dope, but there’s always more.

  Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a Supertramp song, like “Bloody Well Right,” at a bar in OC? Drinks with pink umbrellas, on Thursday night girls get in for free, your skin’s got that tight and prickly feeling from laying out all day, the boys are sweet and sweaty, and the words of the song are being hollered drunkenly by everyone at your table, “Right, you’re bloody well right. You know you got a right to say!” Binky Magruder’s there in her perfect tan, cutoffs, and bikini top. Little cousin Belle, who’s never had sex. The Maymores’ adopted daughter Rose. The girl from your sorority, the one who wants to set you up with her boring brother, the guy at Deloitte in DC. Some locals from the Surf Club. The Cross twins must have just left. The bartender’s hot in a ponytail way, b
ut he won’t be tomorrow, and luckily, you figured that out already. You don’t need that kind of sex tonight. The saxophone in the song feels like having another shot of tequila. I love when the moment is all for me, even with each of those other people hogging it, when the music gets life right and the bar’s smelly in the best worst way.

  Seeing the ghost felt like that, as though the saxophone solo in the Supertramp song, the sexy horn solo, was just for me, the sexiest me. Of course, it was possible that the ghost was someone else’s, since the ghost had not paid total attention to me, or even that the ghost was shareable. Other people in other bars are always singing “Bloody Well Right” all up and down the Maryland shore, in bars everywhere in the country, for sure, and believing the Supertramp saxophone solo was theirs alone, too. But for whatever reason, I was pretty sure that ghost had to be mine.

  A girl sees her own boutique ghost for a reason.

  Everyone should have a gay brother. Mine’s named Charles.

  “What about hiring a private investigator?” he asked.

  “To find a ghost?”

  We were in Charles’s office at First Commerce. He had taken off his suit jacket. He had on a pale pink shirt with a white spread collar, French cuffs with blue and silver cufflinks in a diamond-in-a-circle pattern, and a simple navy-blue tie tied with a Pratt knot, along with a shiny pair of tasseled loafers. I had finished my muffin and I was feeling better from the 450 calories.

  “Guess not,” he agreed. “Take your feet off my desk.”

  “You don’t believe me.” I gave a little kick in the air before sitting properly.

  “Well…” Charles rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you ever bring me anything?” Charles aimed his pout at my latte.

  “You’re not taking me seriously.”

  “Buns,” he said, his childhood nickname for me, “you’re insane.”

  “Don’t say that! I saw it!”

  “Fine.” He stood up to look from his tinted window down at the post office. His office is on the second floor, a corner office with a good view of the plaza. “You saw a ghost right there. Right there?” He pointed vaguely, wagging his finger. “What are you going to do about it?”

  I stood up, so we both were standing. He stands, I stand: that’s how business is. I went to school too. “I’m going to find it, and you’re going to help.”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No…” He turned away from the big window. There were piles of papers and folders on his messy desk, and even some on the floor—everywhere, really—but his clothes were always perfect. “You’ve already got me doing everything for your Glitter thing. And I’m not even allowed to tell.”

  “You’re such a queen,” I said. “All you do is whine, like that’s your goal in life. I want a different gay brother,” I said.

  Charles smiled at me, came around to my side of his desk, put one hand on my shoulder and with the other snatched my latte and chugged what was left, slurping just to bother me. He has a great smile. “You’re going to give Mom a stroke, you know. A gay son and now a Glitter daughter. I love it.”

  “We’re their children,” I said.

  “Oh, Buns,” Charles said softly. “It’s okay. She’ll live—she always does. And you’ll find your ghost.”

  I was off this week, taking five of my vacation days as I handled the run-up to GlitterFest. Mr. Wozinski, who wanted everyone to call him Stan, even though no one would, had been very supportive. The vice president of the firm where I worked, E & F Consulting, Mr. Wozinski had allowed me to bring my laptop into the office to do GlitterFest work at my desk. He had ignored my commandeering of secretarial help, my use of the conference room Smart Board, and all of that copying, way over budget. Charity work was good for E & F, Mr. Wozinski had said, but of course he knew who my family was, or why else was he being super nice? Sometimes it was a pain to be a Louis in Saxon Hills, and sometimes it was worth the hassle. I often didn’t like it.

  GlitterFest was only scheduled for one day, Saturday—so soon!—and I still had a crap ton to do. But I just couldn’t go back to the office. Instead, I went to sit by my favorite fountain in Memorial Park, where I like to go to eat my lunch salad and feed the birds the walnuts I push to the side. Walnuts make my lips itch.

  The benches are crude and they need to be repainted, but the fountain’s pretty, the water bubbling out of the raised bowl and the mouths of the concrete fish and down into the pool, and I can stare into the falling water and feel like there’s a connection, the drops a little like my life in Glitter. Or maybe I’m one of the drops, I haven’t decided.

  Charles hadn’t been any help. Should I sit on the PO steps in the sun, to see if the ghost came back? If I were a ghost, why would I go to the Saxon Hills Post Office? I had decided the ghost was a girl. My ghost had already been to the PO, and she was coming out of the PO, which told me her PO business was done. I don’t know a thing about ghosts or their lives, as in, to whom would a ghost send a real letter? Or a ghost letter? Had she needed to mail a letter to a ghost in Ghostville? Why not simply send a ghost email with a ghost attachment, like the rest of us?

  She hadn’t looked like Beetlejuice, a classic movie I love. She wasn’t a cartoon. She had nothing to do with my Nana. I had been able to see through her, even though she seemed solid from thirty feet away. There were some rainbow colors to her edges, but not like a full-on rainbow you see in the sky, just a lot of colors. Not the rainbow flag. Not colors in order. She had sort of flowed, I think, but that might have been a memory I had of a cartoon from when I was a kid. Cartoons and memories are hard to tell apart.

  I had only seen her face in profile, but her chin was strong—definitely strong enough to make me self-conscious, if that were my chin. She might have had hair, but I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t seen what she was wearing, and I always see what people are wearing. That was a shocker. How could I not notice what a ghost was wearing? Not noticing her outfit was another reminder that this had to be important.

  There was just too much to do before Saturday, and now I had a ghost. I didn’t know how to find her. I took out my phone, answered a couple of texts quickly—to one of the promoter/band managers for GlitterFest, who handled a band called Wagawagawaga, I replied “Srsly? Its 4 charity.” The jerk had asked again for ten more gate passes. I wanted to say, hey, have you seen my ghost?

  Why in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, ghost chick? What the hell? Like, I could see you right there. You were right there—you showed up, you walked into my life, right there.

  I answered a few more texts. In my business career, so far, I had already become a person who has to tell everyone no. Over the long term, before I turned thirty, being so negative was going to make me unhappy. I’m a positive kind of person. I need a yes kind of job. After GlitterFest, I would speak to Mr. Wozinski about letting me have a job that wasn’t such a downer.

  For Saturday, thanks to Charles, the use license was a go, as were the event permit and the insurance. The tent company would do the install late on Friday afternoon on Ball Field #2 at Findlay Park. The Saxon Hills Parks and Rec guy seemed happy with my planning, but I think he has the hots for me. He was texting me a lot of emojis. I hadn’t told him yet that I hate hipster beards, and emojis are so yesterday. Of course, he might shave, maybe that would help. I could get a man to shave, I’m that kind of girl, and as we like to say in Glitter, you never know what’s under there.

  The two stages were rented and ready to be built. The GlitterMart was roped off in Parking Lot #4, the numbered parking spaces useful for assigning vendor spots. The off-duty cops were lined up to work security. The cleanup crew was arranged—through another board member of the Boys and Girls Club, who knew someone who knew someone whose mother knew someone who had a little company. The cleanup crew would be Mexicans, in Saxon Hills, because that’s how companies in Saxon Hills handle illegals. Connections were always useful, of course, it’s the world, and we had gotten a lot of goods and se
rvices lined up. The T-shirts were printed and being shipped. I had made an appointment at my mom’s hairdresser for Friday at one. The concessionaire who had the Parks and Rec contract had texted me this morning to say that in addition to their usual, they would agree to serve garden burgers after all. That guy had been a pain in my patootie. I mean, how can garden burgers be a problem? I didn’t even try to mention quinoa.

  The bands were set. Four local acts: Wagawagawaga (lots of dope percussion, with bongos too), Tom Thumb (their front man was a rapper like seventy feet tall), Holden and the Cauliflowers (kids in art school), the Child-Bearing Hips (a roots band). The tribute band was booked, You Too, to bring in a different kind of crowd, although I thought their lead singer looked more like Adele than Bono. After the tribute band played, we would finish with the headliner, who would do a two-hour set beginning at eight o’clock, a girl band called Chicks-burgh that had been at SXSW this year and were rumored to be opening for The Razors on their next tour. Just last week, one of the Chicksburgh guitarists had Instagrammed a Coachella logo, vaguebooking like a year ahead, or just creating demand for more vaguebooking, because that’s PR.

  Before Chicksburgh hit their first chord, I would make my speech.

  I texted Charles: “c my ghost?”

  He texted back: “cray cray.”

  For the past three years, I have lived a life in Glitter. We’re a society, a passion, a lifestyle, a community: we’re a guerilla fetish dedicated to innocence. Those of us who live in Glitter—who meet in our chat room, and in our one public venue, a bar called The Glitter Dome in Charlottesville, Virginia, and who run the online GlitterMart—all wear glitter. We paint our bodies and then go to work, to class, to therapy, even to church on Sunday with Bertrand Ellison Louis and Nancy Robinson Starkweather Louis of Saxon Hills, Maryland. We keep our secret, the fabulous sparkles of our kink, under our clothes or our uniforms. We tell no one. Someone’s pumping gas at the gas station, or locking up people at the police house—that’s not the word, I mean the police station—and they’re in Glitter, and no one would know. We go in Glitter to Nana’s funeral.